Schubert & Tchaikovsky Works for String Quartet

Stark and steely is the opening outcry of the Kopelman Quartet’s account of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. Passionate and remorseless, the Kopelman shows how well Schubert fuses all this material as the music swings like a pendulum from protest to rhapsody with the detail of emphatic motifs shared by instruments in turn. The exposition repeat seems different: the opening more declamatory, the second theme more a sad recollection of happiness than reliving it. This account is both moving and disturbing.
The first movement of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 3 is unusual in that its contrasting central section is longer than its outer episodes. The Kopelman introduce it with a warm gravity, but there's soon the passion of protest. The first violin melody which is the nub of the outer sections is rich and emotive, grows in passion, sinks back exhausted but continues to repeat its essence. This is all achieved with movingly poised playing. Musicweb-international